01 August 2007
The kidnap of 23 South Korean missionaries in Afghanistan is a tragedy, but the events can only be understood in the context of the deployment of South Korean troops to aid the US/Nato occupation.

20 November 2004
The biggest workers’ rally in South Korea since 1997 took place on Sunday. Slogans included "An end to discrimination against temporary workers", "No to the Korea-Japan free trade area" and "For the withdrawal of Korean troops from Iraq". The rally was a launchpad for an indefinite strike by public sector workers to defend union rights in the face of repression by the government.

05 June 2004
I WAS lucky enough recently to visit South Korea-a country that is changing extraordinarily fast. It belongs to the handful of dynamic East Asian economies that have been tilting the centre of gravity of global capitalism towards the Pacific Rim.

27 March 2004
OVER A million people took to the streets of South Korea last Saturday. More than 200,000 people gathered in Seoul for a candlelight rally to protest against the impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun by the three opposition conservative parties-the Grand National Party, Millennium Democratic Party, and United Liberal Democrats.

28 February 2004
ON SUNDAY of last week two Korean socialists, Kim Woo-yong and Chang Ho-chul, were arrested by the South Korean police. The arrest shows the true nature of Roh Moo-hyun's government, which claims to be democratic. Chang has now been released, but Kim is still in custody. Trade unions and left organisations like the All Together group have organised protests against the arrest and are demanding Kim's release.

19 July 2003
THE HEADLINES in the papers slammed Tony Blair as he set off this week to the US, Japan and South Korea. They reflect a now near universal feeling that his days are numbered. Just this weekend you could read "We don't trust you: Tony Blair has lost the trust of the British people over war on Iraq" (Daily Mirror). "Lost on the Third Way to nowhere. He's run out of drive and so have his policies" (Sunday Times).

24 May 2003
Why support for the far right has grown
BELGIUM'S general election saw a terrifying surge in support for the far right Vlaams Blok (Flemish Block). The party is overtly racist and pushes savagely anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies.

11 January 2003
THE US has been caught out banging the war drum over North Korea. That threat has provoked such a strong public reaction that the governments of South Korea and Japan, both US allies, have distanced themselves from George Bush. The division of the Korean peninsula into two states is a relic of the Cold War. The US backed the South, while China and Russia at different times supported the North.

08 June 2002
AS THE World Cup unfolds in South Korea and Japan a very different drama is taking place near the main stadium in Seoul, the South Korean capital. The Korean government wants to deport thousands of "illegal" migrant workers to "clean up" the city while the world's media are there. It won't touch the businessmen and employers who control what the workers call "a latter day slave trade".

03 March 2001
Over 4,000 riot police stormed into a Daewoo Motors plant in South Korea last week. They stormed the building to smash up a four day long sit-in by 700 sacked workers and their families fighting for their jobs. The security forces broke down barricades with forklift trucks and excavators.